27 Dresses: High School Musical Twist
by heavy.sighs.and.sad.goodbyes
Summary: She designs for something to do. All she really wants is him, but he already has someone else. TroyGabriella.


**A/N: This is going to be a long fanfic. It's based kind of on the movie ****27 Dresses**** (my favorite!). I hope you enjoy!**

Gabriella glanced around the halls quietly, looking for her best friend, Troy Bolton. Most girls thought of him as a god, and she felt the same way. If only she could admit it to him.

But she couldn't do that. She had waited too long. He was now dating the one and only Sharpay Evans. Why would he bother with her?

She sighed, giving up. He was either at an after school practice, or doing something he shouldn't have been in the janitor's closet with his girlfriend—again.

She walked to her locker. Oh, wait, scratch that. She wasn't walking. She was trudging. She trudged back to her locker, thinking of the next wedding dress she would design and for whom.

She reached into her locker and pulled out a notebook. To all her friends, it was an ordinary notebook. But to her it was her most prized possession. All her dress designs were in it. She had always dreamed of a wedding with Troy, and as that happened, she had a fantasy of designing her friends' wedding gowns according to their personalities.

It was an easy hobby, and she liked the fact that it was something she could do all by herself. It was something she was completely independent about. Something that none of her friends could help her with. She liked that about designing the dresses.

She sighed again before slamming her locker door shut. The sound carried through the hallway. Empty. Completely empty. Just her. Alone. With no one. That's how it was lately.

Troy was always out with Sharpay, and all her other friends had hooked up. Taylor was with Chad all the time, Jason and Kelsi went on fun little romantic dates, and Martha and Ryan had just recently started dating. Even they were a match made in heaven.

Zeke. Good old Zeke. He had a girlfriend too. She was a French foreign exchange student. A model of course. Her name was—oh what was it. Oh, something long and endless. Something like Jaquinella or Jashinillie. Something with a J at the beginning.

Gabriella walked down the hall. TRUDGED down the hall. Looks like she was going to have to take the city bus. Troy had insisted that he take her home from now on because of the weird people you could meet on buses. But he always seemed to forget.

Gabriella started to feel her anger rise. She gently calmed herself at the thought of designing a new and exciting dress that very day right when she got home from school. Oh, she couldn't wait!

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Gabriella had finally made it home. She quickly finished her homework and pulled out her design notebook. Then a knock came at her balcony door. She sighed and placed the book gently under her bed. She just barely unlocked the door when Troy came flying in.

"I forgot again! Oh, God, Gabi. I'm so sorry. I go on and on about how you shouldn't be riding the public bus, and then I forget. Oh man….." Troy went on. Gabriella rolled her eyes. She still loved him. But all that time with Sharpay had made him not only BASKETBALL king, but DRAMA king.

"No Troy, really. It's ok. I don't really mind. I brought extra money along just in case I would have to take the bus…." Gabi clapped a hand over her mouth. Now she'd done it.

Troy stopped pacing and looked at her. "Oh my god. OH MY GOD! You even expected me to forget! Oh god. Brie, I'm so so so so so so sorry," he told her as he hugged her.

Gabi quickly brought in his scent. She was making memories. Too bad they weren't exactly like the memories Sharpay had gotten out of him in that janitor's closet….

"It's okay Troy," she told him gently. "I'm fine, see? I'm still all in one piece," she reminded him as she sat down on her bed.

He walked over to her. "Yeah. But what if you hadn't been? I never would've forgiven myself." He told her glumly.

"Sure you would. Then after you had sex with Sharpay—again—you'd forget all about me," she mumbled under her breath.

"Did you say something, Brie?" Troy asked her. He usually wasn't too keen on hearing things like that, especially when it was about _his_ girlfriend.

Gabi started to panic. She couldn't tell him. Sure, he knew that she didn't like Sharpay, but she didn't want to fight with him over that. Again.

"No. Just mumbling to myself," she replied cheerily. A little too cheerily.

But Troy just left it. He knew that she hated Sharpay. He couldn't exactly say that he blamed her. At one point, he hadn't exactly been Sharpay's #1 fan.

"Oh. Well, okay. If you're sure that you're fine, then I'll just go. I have to meet Sharpay at the country club. She said that she had a surprise for me." Troy licked his lips, knowing exactly what the surprise was going to be.

"Oh, I'm fine. I wouldn't want to keep you from your fun," she said, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice. This time Troy didn't notice.

"Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow, right?" Gabriella nodded and Troy left.

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Gabriella finished yet another dress that night. It was her 27 dress that she had drawn. She felt like there was someone missing. Some model in that book that she knew and cared about. But she shrugged it off. Who could it possibly be?

She looked at the time. It was already 2 a.m. Sure, she loved designing dresses, but it could take such a long time. Of course, it's not as if the dresses were just doodles. They were very detailed designs.

She decided that it was time to get some sleep. Just as she was falling asleep, she glanced at the picture on her nightstand. It was of her and Troy. They both looked happy. Troy had his arms hugging her waist, and Gabi had her arms wrapped around his neck. Gabi smiled as she remembered what her mother had said a couple of months ago.

"You two would make such a better couple than him and Sharpay. Don't worry, honey. He'll realize how much he likes you."

Yeah, well. Gabriella was starting to doubt that. No matter what she did, he still didn't know how she felt about him. Gabriella sighed and fell asleep.

When she got to school the next morning, Gabriella didn't bother looking for Troy. After last night, she was kind of mad at him. She knew that he didn't really care that he had forgotten about her. He just said it to take the guilt off his shoulders.

She sighed and slammed her locker. This was going to be a long day. Thank god it was Friday though…..

After school, everyone was looking for Gabriella. They wanted to know if she wanted to go to the mall or something. It had been so long since they had all done something together.

They were all looking around the school. Then Troy came across a notebook. He took his arm off of Sharpay's shoulder and picked it up.

It was purple, with small doodles on the cover. In the lower right hand corner, he could see Gabriella's small, neat manuscript.

Property of:

Gabriella Anne Montez

He grinned and stood up.

"What's that?" Taylor asked him when she saw the notebook.

"It's Gabriella's notebook. She probably doesn't even know it's gone." He replied.

At that moment, Jason and Kelsi walked up, hand-in-hand. "She's not in the library." Jason told them.

"She's probably at home already." Sharpay pointed out.

"DAMNIT!" Troy yelled.

"What's wrong, baby?" Sharpay asked him as she nibbled on his ear.

"I can't believe I forgot to take her home again. I forgot yesterday too."

"Hey guys? I think you should look at this."

Everyone gathered around Chad to take a peak. He had opened the notebook and had flipped through a couple of the pages. All of the pages contained the same thing. Wedding dresses.

Troy took the notebook from him and flipped through the pages, slowly, to savor what he was seeing. Everybody stared at the same thing. Taylor gasped as she saw herself on one of the pages, in a long, flowing gown. At the bottom of the page was written: Chad and Taylor.

The next page had Jason and Kelsi written on the bottom. The page after that had Martha and Ryan.

The next page had Sharpay. But that's it. It didn't have Troy's name. Just Sharpay's. Sharpay felt her anger flare. She was probably the only one who knew that Gabriella liked Troy, and she was also the only one who knew why Troy's name wasn't with hers on the page.

Troy ignored Sharpay and turned the page, expecting to see Gabriella's dress. The page was blank. He kept flipping. That was it. There were no other dresses. Troy closed it quietly and looked at his friends. Taylor was the first to speak.

"She doesn't have a boyfriend," she reminded them quietly. "She probably thought that there was no point in making herself a dress if she doesn't have a boyfriend.

"According to her, I don't have a boyfriend either! Why the hell didn't she put Troy's name at the bottom pf the page along with mine?" She told them angrily.

"Well why don't we ask her? Come on. Let's go to her house."

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They all took their separate cars to get to Gabi's house. Troy was going over the speed limit. Way over the speed limit. By about 25 m/h. But he didn't care. All he wanted was an explanation to Sharpay's question: Why wasn't his name with hers? Gabriella knew that he and Sharpay had been dating for months now. It was pretty obvious they were an item.

Finally they all got there. They rang the doorbell. Footsteps pounded on the stairs and the door swung open just seconds later.

Gabriella stood there, confused. Why on earth were all her friends standing on her front porch? Then she saw Troy pull out a purple notebook and she felt her breath stop. They all stood there, staring at her expectantly. They watched as her face turned purple from not breathing. And yet none of them could step forward and tell her to take a deep breath.

Then, in one swift movement, Gabriella snatched the notebook from Troy's hand and slammed the door in her friends' faces, locking the door behind her as she ran up to her room.

She cried. She sat on her bed and cried. They knew. They knew her secret. They knew that she hadn't put Troy's name with Sharpay's. The only thing they didn't know was why she had done that. But Sharpay knew. Gabi knew it.

She heard a loud knock on her balcony door. Only Troy ever did that. She whimpered. The last thing she wanted was to face Troy right then.

"Come on Gabriella! Open up! It's just me!" Troy yelled though the door. "Please, Brie!" He begged.

Gabriella gasped. He hadn't called her Brie since before he and Sharpay had started dating. Slowly she got up and opened the door. She refused to meet his eye as he stepped into her bedroom. Too much pain would come from doing something like that.

"Brie," he whispered as he opened his arms to hug her. She shoved him into her dresser.

"Get away from me, you idiot! Leave me the fuck alone!" She screamed at him.

Troy was taken aback. She had never, _ever_ screamed at him before. She had never used that high-pitched squeal before, and she had definitely never pushed him away.

He watched as she shook violently as she cried. Only one question came out of his mouth. "What did I do?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?! You didn't love me, that's what you did! For the past three years I've been dropping hints on how much I want to be with you, and you don't even notice. I sit there at the lunch table and I hear you telling Chad what a great time you had with Sharpay last night or how much you'd like to do it again after you win your next big game! Every time you say that stuff, I wish that it were me you were talking about! But it isn't! You never talk about me anymore!"

Troy watched as Gabriella's shoulders shook violently as she cried. He tried to take it all in. And he realized it was true.

She had been dropping small hints for the past three years. He was always telling Chad what a great time he was having with Sharpay. But he wouldn't have if he'd known that it was hurting Gabi.

"I'm sorry," he told her softly. Her head shot up and she gave him a death glare.

"SORRY MY ASS!! YOU'RE NOT SORRY!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SORRY IS ANYMORE TROY!" she screamed. "Let's face it!! Sharpay means a lot more to you now than I ever did." She added a little bit quieter.

"That's not true…." Troy started.

"Yes it is. The last we hung out for more than an hour just the two of us was back before you even started dating Sharpay," she reminded him in an almost inaudible whisper as she choked back more tears. "If you're really sorry, you'll show me how sorry you are. Oh, but wait. You can't do that. You're either too busy with Sharpay, or with basketball to do anything about it!"

Troy looked away. The more she said, the more it hurt. "Brie, please. I can't lose you."

Gabi glanced up at him. There was that nickname again. After a moment of silence, she spoke. "Fine. But don't talk to me. When I'm ready, I'll talk to you."

Troy nodded and left.

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It had been weeks since the fight. Everybody was starting to grow apart. They hadn't broken up exactly, but they just weren't talking as much as before. Troy and Sharpay on the other hand, had broken up. Troy didn't want to hurt Gabi any more.

Five weeks after the fight, Troy was walking out of the locker room after practice. Everyone else had left over half an hour ago. He was the only one there. Or so he thought.

"Troy?" a small voice asked. He quickly spun around, only to come face-to-face with Gabriella Montez, the only girl he had been thinking about for the past five weeks. He just nodded.

Gabriella swallowed. He didn't even want to speak to her. Why on earth would he want to be friends again?

"Troy, I…." he didn't give her a chance to finish. Instead, he pressed his lips against hers.

When he pulled away, Gabriella smiled at him. He pulled his backpack off his back and pulled out a folder. He shuffled around inside it for a while before finding what he was looking for. He pulled it out and gently placed it in her hands.

She looked at it for a moment. It was bits and pieces of different white wedding gowns glued to a piece of paper t make the prettiest dress she had ever seen. And at the top, right above the neckline, Troy had pasted a picture of her face.

"Look at the bottom." He whispered in her ear. She did as he asked and gasped.

It read:

Troy and Gabriella

Will you marry me?

She looked up at him. He opened her hand and placed a beautiful diamond ring in it. She gasped again and tears streamed down her face, just as they had for the past five weeks.

"After high school. Or after college. I don't care when. I just want to marry you, and I want us to stay together. Please, Brie?" he asked her softly.

She nodded. "Yes! Yes!" she told him. He laughed and spun her around.

"On one condition," he told her. Her smile disappeared.

"What?"

"That you wear this dress on our wedding day." He told her with a smile. She smiled bigger than she ever had before and nodded.

"I'd never wear anything else on my wedding day."

At that note, he picked her up and kissed her.

The End

**A/N: Corny, right? Sorry. I had to write that one. After my favorite movie ever (other than High School Musical ******

**Please review! (First one shot. Don't be too harsh!)**


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